The French Duty of Vigilance Law, enacted on March 27, 2017 as Law No. 2017-399, requires France’s largest corporations to publish and carry out a plan to identify and prevent human rights abuses and environmental harm across their operations, their subsidiaries, and their established suppliers worldwide. It was the first national statute anywhere to impose binding human rights and environmental due diligence obligations backed by civil liability, and it applies to roughly 300 of the country’s biggest companies.
Which Companies Must Comply
Coverage turns on employee headcount at the close of two consecutive fiscal years. A company headquartered in France falls within scope if it and its direct or indirect French-based subsidiaries together employ at least 5,000 people. If the count sweeps in subsidiaries worldwide, the threshold rises to 10,000.1Business and Human Rights Centre. France’s Duty of Vigilance law Both permanent and temporary workers count, and every entity the parent controls, directly or through intermediate holding structures, is included.
The two-year rule prevents companies from dipping briefly above or below the line to escape coverage. A single year above the threshold does not trigger the obligation. Once a company qualifies for two straight years, it must begin publishing a plan and cannot shed the duty until its headcount drops below the threshold for two consecutive years again.
What the Vigilance Plan Must Contain
The core obligation is to create, publish, and actually carry out a vigilance plan designed to spot risks and prevent serious harm to human rights, health and safety, and the environment. The plan must appear in the company’s annual management report, making it public.2United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. UNODC Business Integrity Portal Five components are mandatory.
- A risk mapping that identifies and ranks the risks of serious harm connected to the company’s own operations, its subsidiaries, and its suppliers and subcontractors, reflecting the specific geographies and sectors involved rather than generic boilerplate.
- Assessment procedures that regularly evaluate subsidiaries, subcontractors, and suppliers with whom the company has an established commercial relationship, checking conditions on the ground against the mapped risks.
- Concrete mitigation and prevention actions to reduce identified risks, including revised procurement contracts, changed sourcing practices, or safety training in high-risk facilities.
- An alert mechanism developed with the company’s representative trade unions that allows workers, affected communities, or whistleblowers to flag potential violations without retaliation.2United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. UNODC Business Integrity Portal
- A monitoring scheme that tracks whether the measures are actually working and updates the plan as new risks emerge.
The plan must be developed with input from relevant stakeholders, including trade unions and, where appropriate, community representatives in affected areas. Each element needs enough specificity to show a real prevention effort. When courts later evaluate a plan, they ask whether the measures were reasonable relative to the scale and nature of the identified risks, not whether the company achieved a perfect outcome.3Cambridge Core. The French Law on the Duty of Vigilance – Theoretical and Practical Challenges Since its Adoption
How Far the Plan Must Reach
The plan must cover three categories of activity: the company’s own operations, the activities of any subsidiary it controls directly or indirectly, and the activities of subcontractors and suppliers with whom it has an “established commercial relationship.”4RESPECT. French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law (English Translation) That last phrase does most of the work. A one-off purchase from a foreign factory does not trigger vigilance obligations, but an ongoing sourcing arrangement almost certainly does.
An established commercial relationship is generally understood as one marked by stability, regularity, a meaningful volume of business, and an expectation of continuity. The more a supplier depends on a single corporation for its revenue, the stronger the argument that the corporation should use its leverage to ensure safe and lawful conditions. Courts look at the practical reality of the dealings, not just what the contract says about duration or exclusivity.
The scope is broad by design. A French multinational that sources raw materials from mines in one country, manufactures components in another, and assembles products in a third must map risks and take preventive action across all those tiers, not just at the first supplier it deals with directly. The obligation follows the risk, not the corporate org chart, and applies regardless of where the subcontractor or supplier sits.1Business and Human Rights Centre. France’s Duty of Vigilance law
How the Law Is Enforced
Enforcement starts with a formal written demand called a mise en demeure. Any party with a legitimate interest, including NGOs, trade unions, affected communities, and local governments, can send one to a company that has either failed to publish a vigilance plan or published one that is inadequate.5BSR. France’s Due Diligence Law – Is Your Company Ready to Disclose Its Vigilance Plan? The notice must spell out what the company is doing wrong and give it three months to fix it.
If the company does not comply within that window, the party can bring the matter before the Paris Judicial Tribunal, which has had exclusive jurisdiction over duty of vigilance cases since a December 2021 law consolidated all such proceedings in a single court. The judge can order the company to create a plan if none exists, improve a deficient plan, or take specific corrective measures. Injunctions can be backed by an astreinte, a periodic financial penalty that accrues for each day the company remains out of compliance. There is no statutory cap; the judge sets the amount at whatever level is needed to force action.1Business and Human Rights Centre. France’s Duty of Vigilance law
The law carries no criminal penalties. The entire mechanism operates through civil courts, and the real pressure comes from the combination of daily financial penalties, mandatory injunctions, and the reputational exposure of public litigation.
Suing for Damages When Harm Occurs
The law also creates a direct path for victims to sue for damages. Article L. 225-102-5 of the French Commercial Code provides that anyone who fails to comply with the vigilance obligations is liable, under the general tort framework of Articles 1240 and 1241 of the French Civil Code, to compensate for harm that proper due diligence would have prevented.6RESPECT. French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law (English Translation) Anyone with a legitimate interest can file, so claims are not limited to direct victims. NGOs representing affected communities have standing as well.
The burden of proof sits with the plaintiff. A claimant must show three things: the company failed to adopt or implement a reasonable vigilance plan, actual harm occurred, and the company’s failure to act is what allowed that harm to happen. Causation is where most cases get difficult. Key evidence, such as internal risk assessments or supplier audit results, is typically in the sole possession of the company, and plaintiffs sometimes struggle to obtain it through standard civil procedure rules. Courts have not settled on how aggressively they will use discovery-like tools to address this imbalance.
If liability is established, the company can be ordered to pay compensatory damages to individuals or communities harmed by labor abuses, unsafe working conditions, or environmental contamination. Article 1252 of the French Civil Code also allows courts to order preventive measures to stop environmental harm before it worsens, giving judges power that reaches beyond backward-looking compensation.
How Litigation Is Defining the Law
Much of the law’s practical meaning is being built through cases rather than legislative clarification, and two are shaping the field.
TotalEnergies and Climate Obligations
A coalition of environmental organizations argues that TotalEnergies’ vigilance plan is inadequate because it does not align the company’s fossil fuel production with climate targets. A hearing on the merits took place at the Paris Judicial Court on February 19 and 20, 2026, marking the first time French judges have examined whether a multinational oil and gas company can be legally compelled to reduce production under the duty of vigilance.7Sherpa. Climate Case Against TotalEnergies – A Decisive Hearing on the Merits The plaintiffs also rely on Article 1252, arguing the court can order preventive action to stop environmental damage. A ruling in their favor could require TotalEnergies to halt new exploration projects and cut emissions across its operations, potentially under daily financial penalty.
BNP Paribas and Climate Financing
Filed in 2023 by three French NGOs, this case extends the duty of vigilance to the financial sector. The plaintiffs argue that BNP Paribas’ vigilance plan fails to adequately identify climate risks stemming from its fossil fuel financing and investment activities. The specific criticisms include that the plan does not cover all relevant sectors, omits downstream emissions from financed companies, and contains no commitment to stop financing fossil fuel expansion. The case remains pending. A ruling could establish that banks bear vigilance obligations not just for their own operations but for the climate impacts of the projects they fund.
Other formal notices and suits have targeted food companies over plastic pollution and fast-food corporations over labor conditions. Civil society groups are using the mise en demeure process aggressively, and courts are being asked to define terms the statute left vague: what counts as a reasonable measure, how far down the supply chain vigilance must reach, and whether the law can compel forward-looking changes to a company’s business model rather than only remedy past failures.
What the EU CSDDD Will Change
The French law was the template for the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD, also called CS3D), which entered into force on July 25, 2024. Member states must transpose the directive into national law by July 26, 2027, with a phased rollout that brings the first group of companies into scope one year later and reaches full application by July 26, 2029.8European Commission. Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence France will need to update its existing law to conform.
The CSDDD applies to EU companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than €450 million in net worldwide turnover, plus non-EU companies generating more than €450 million in the EU. It explicitly covers distribution, transport, and storage of products, though it excludes the use and disposal phases.8European Commission. Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence The French law uses only employee headcount with no revenue test and is silent on downstream activities like distribution.
The biggest structural change is enforcement. The French law relies entirely on civil courts and private litigation. The CSDDD requires each member state to designate an administrative supervisory authority with power to investigate companies, order corrective action, and impose financial penalties of at least 5% of the company’s net worldwide turnover.9Pinsent Masons. Penalties and Enforcement Under the CS3D That is a different model from the current French approach, where enforcement depends on NGOs or unions filing suit. France must designate its supervisory authority by July 2026.
The directive also introduces obligations the French law does not currently contain: a formal remediation requirement when harm has occurred, more detailed criteria for meaningful stakeholder engagement, and explicit attention to responsible purchasing practices. Companies already complying with the French duty of vigilance will have a head start, but should expect the transposed rules to demand more granular reporting, broader value chain coverage, and interaction with a regulator that can open investigations without waiting for a lawsuit.